On February 15th, we packed our bags and headed to St. Francis with Sarah for her fun & exciting gum line closure. This is the last step (usually) in the cleft repair, so we were all excited! We'd been through the lip repair, soft palate, and hard palate (twice repairs. Her arch had been expanded beautifully, thanks to Dr. Vincent, and she was ready to go. Dr. Hagerty removed some bone from her hip, and Dr. Strauss packed it in her gum line. Everything went smoothly. After a long week and a half at home, she went back to school, still on a soft food diet. If she never ate mashed potatoes again, who could blame her? Mrs. Marino & Mrs. Motroni were great about sending her work and answering questions via e-mail, as the school district denied her home bound request. We did discover that she will need another bone graft since her cleft is pretty impressive, but we won't need the hip bone to do that, thankfully, as that was the worst part of the recovery for her.
